Searching the Stacks

Bookstores are rapidly disappearing.  Those that survive are increasing their display of other merchandise.  Games, apparel, greeting cards, writing supplies, toys, etc., are becoming almost more prominent than the books themselves.

If you are fortunate enough to stumble across a new author you like, good luck finding any more by that writer.  Unless the author is one of a handful of favorites, you're not likely to find any follow-up titles.  The depth of collection is no longer a bookstore concern. 

You might be able to request a book, and they may be able to order it for you, depending on the quality of the bookstore.  Whether someone wants to go through that, or just order the book from Amazon, is an open question.

The same holds true for many public libraries.  Their shelf space is being reduced, as their budgets are cut, and more and more users are coming for other things, particularly computers with internet access.  But you can request books that are not there, and you may be able to get the title, using the inter-library borrowing system.

But the reduction in access to books, especially the joy of browsing, may be even more widespread than I first thought.

My son, Benjamin, is a junior in high school, and we have begun touring different college campuses.  It's early, but we wanted to give him plenty of time and information to consider his options.  One of those we toured recently gave me quite a shock.

It was a pleasant campus, big but contained in one area.  If Benjamin went there, he could easily walk or bike to wherever he wanted to go. We took a walking tour with a student guide, and she was friendly, informative and humorous.

The highlight of the tour was the university library.  It was a big, modern building, and was four stories high.  Compared to the library at the first college we toured, it looked impressive.  Our guide took us in the building.  We stayed in the lobby, but I could see much of the first floor from where we were.  All I saw was a very large study area for students.  I looked up through the clear glass window of the second floor.  What I saw were more study spaces.

I'm usually quiet and shy during these tours, but I had to ask her, "Where are the books?"  She told me there were a lot of books on the second through fourth floors and that, if you requested a book at the library desk, that a robot would help find it and bring it to you.  I think she thought I would be impressed that the school was modern and fancy enough that a robot could do that.  I was not.  I was horrified.

"Do you mean there are book stacks that a student cannot browse themselves?" I asked.  She answered that there were areas the students could not browse, but there was a small section of books that they could look at if they wanted to.

This blew my mind.  My favorite part of going to college was wandering the labyrinth of bookshelves at the huge University of Michigan library.  I had no plan.  I had no purpose, other than to wander through history, our world and other worlds, and see what surprises I could run into.  The whole idea that students may not be able to do this any more left me shattered. 

After the trip, I tried to explain to several people my feelings about this.  I basically got dismissed as being old-fashioned and out of touch with the way the world works now.

Maybe.  That doesn't stop me from thinking we've lost something special.  Something you can't get from an e-reader, or an online store, or a robot.  Searching the stacks, being driven by a sense of intellectual curiosity, discovering a hidden gem that changes your life or way of thinking; this seems special and unique to me.

I'm going to miss it.  Finally, a change in our culture that makes me feel old, and kind of depressed.  I regret that my son may have either have none or only limited opportunities to search the stacks.

There are still a few places left, a few used bookstores that are big enough to get lost in, some larger public libraries that have not yet limited shelf access.  I'm going to continue to go on quests to find them and cherish them.

As long as there still stacks to search, I will be there.